4. Ethnicity, indigenous reemergence and mining conflict . The Pascua Lama project, [the State] and the reethnification process Diaguitas of the Huasco Alto, Chile

Abstract

From the beginning of this century, Native Chilean Diaguitas have been rebuilding their identity in the midst of their struggle against the Pascua Lama project promoted by Barrick Gold, a Canadian mining company. The Diaguita’s re-emergence process, Pascua Lama’s development and its opposition movement have simultaneously taken place in the early 2000’s and in the northern Chilean Huasco Alto region. Nearly fifteen years from the beginning of the project, Diaguitas are now both the main opponents of Barrick Gold and the main target market of its social responsibility policies, making the Canadian company an ambiguous but major actor in their re-emergence process. Analyzing this process shows the inherent logic of the neoliberal multiculturalism model and the mechanisms leading to a compatible indigeneity with the mining companies’ interest and the Chilean State’s criterion.